Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/842

828 ) Galen is quoting the words of Asclepiades Pharmacion. His medical formulae are also several times quoted by Aetiiis (iii. 4. 42, p. 604, iv. 2. li, p. 6ii5, iv. 3. 3, 9, 14, pp. 740, 745, 762, 763), but none of his writings are extant. If he be the same person quoted by Caelius Aurelianus (De Alort. Chron. ii. 1, 7, pp. 365, 386, iv. 3, p. 522), he wrote a work on chronic diseases ( Tardae Passiones) consisting of at least four books. [ W. A. G.] LUCRE'TIA. 1. The wife of Numa Pom- pilius, the second king of Rome, whom, according to some accounts, he married after his accession to the throne. (Plut. Num. 21.)

2. The wife of L. Tarquinius Collatinus, whose rape by Sex. Tarquinius is said to have occasioned the dethronement of Tarquinius Superbus and the establishment of the republic. (Liv. i. 55, &c. ; Dionys. iv. 64, &c.) The details of the legend are given under Tarquinius.  LUCRE'TIA GENS, originally patrician, but subsequently plebeian also. It was one of the most ancient gentes, and the name occurs as early as the reign of Numa Pompilius [Lucretia, No. 1]. The surname of the patrician Lucretii was Triciptinus, one of whom, Sp. Lucretius Triciptinus, was elected consul, with L. Junius Brutus, on the establishment of the republic, B. c. 509. The plebeian families are known by the surnames of Gall us*, fella, and Vespillo. Carus also occurs as the cognomen of the poet Lucretius. [See below.] On coins we have like- wise the cognomen Trio, which is not found in any ancient writer. A few Lucretii are mentioned without any surname.  LUCRETIUS. I. L. Lucretius, quaestor B. c. 218, was taken prisoner by the Ligurians, along with some other Roman officers, and delivered up to Hannibal. (Liv. xxi. 59.)

2. M. Lucretius, tribune of the plebs, b. c. 210, appears to have taken a leading part in the dispute about the appointment of a dictator in that year. (Liv. xxvii. 5.)

3. Sp. Lucretius, plebeian aedile, B. c. 206, and praetor B. c. 205, received in the latter year, as his province, Ariminum, which was the name then given to the province of Gallia Cisalpina. His imperium was continued to hira for the two follow- ing years, B. c. 204 — 203 ; in the latter of which he had to rebuild Genua, which had been destroyed by Mago. In B. c, 200 he was sent as ambassador to Africa with C. Terentius Varro. (Liv. xxviii. 38, xxix. 13, XXX. 1, 11.)

4. C. Lucretius Gallus, was created duumvir navalis with C. Matienus, B.C. 181, in order to equip a fleet against the Ligurians (Liv xl. 26). Livy (/. c.) calls hira simply C. Lucretius, but there can be little doubt about his being the same as C. Lucretius Gallus. Lucretius Gallus was praetor B. c. 171, and received the command of the fleet in the war against Perseus, king of ^Macedonia, He was a worthy match for the consul P. Licinius Crassus, and distinguished himself by his cruelties and exactions in Greece. With the money which he had amassed in the war, he constructed an aqu<^duct at Antium, and adorned the shrine of Aesculapius with votive pictures. On his return to Rome in B.C. 170, the Athenians and Chalcidians brought bitter complaints against him, in con-

fore given below. [Lucretius, No. 4.j
 * Accidentally omitted under Gallus, and there-

sequence of which he was accused by two tribunes of the plebs before the people, and condemned to pay a heavy fine. (Liv. xlii. 28, 31, 35, 48, 56, 63, xliii. 4, 6, 7, 8 ; Polyb. xxvii. 6.)

5. M. Lucretius, brother of No. 4, tribune of the plebs B.C. 172, brought forward a bill *• ut agrum Campanum censores finendura locarent." In the next year he served as legate to his brother in Greece. (Liv. xlii. 19, 48, 56.)

6. Sp. Lucretius, praetor b. c. 172, obtained the province of Further Spain. In B.C. 169 he served with distinction under the consul Q. Marcius Philippus, in the war against Perseus. He was one of the three ambassadors sent into Syria in B. c. 162. (Liv. xhi. 9, 10, xliv. 7 ; Polyb. xxxi. 12, 13.)

7. M. Lucretius, a senator, one of the judices retained by Verres, and hence suspected of having been bribed. (Cic. Verr. i. 7.)

8. Q. Lucretius, accused Livius Drusus of praevaricatio, b. c. 54. He is mentioned by Cicero as an intimate friend of C. Cassius Longinus, and a supporter of the aristocratical party. On the breaking out of the civil war he was stationed at Sulrao with five cohorts, but his colleague C. Attius, according to Cicero, or his town troops according to Caesar, opened the gates of the town to M. An- tony, and Lucretius was obliged to save himself by flight. (Cic. ad Ait. iv. 16. § 5, vii. 24, 25, Caes. B.C.i. 18.)  T. LUCRE′TIUS CARUS. The information to be derived from ancient writers regarding the personal history of Lucretius is very scanty in amount and somewhat suspicious in character That he was a Roman, or at least an Italian by birti), may be inferred from his own words, for he twice speaks of the Latin language as his native tongue (i. 831, iii. 261, comp. i. 42). The Euse- bian Chronicle fixes B. c. 95 as the date of his birth, adding that he was driven mad by a love potion, that during his lucid intervals he composed several works which were revised by Cicero, and that he perished by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age, that is, B. c. 52 or 51. Donatus, on the contrary, affirms that his death happened in B. c. 55, on the very day on which Virgil assumed the toga virilis, an event which, in the Eusebian Chro- nicle, is placed two years later. From what source the tale about the philtre may have been derived we know not. Pomponius Sabinus, in a note on the third' Georgic (1. 202), states that the drug employed was hippomanes, while later writers, twisting a passage in the works of S*. Jerome (ad Rufin. c. 22) to their own views, have declared that the potion was administered by his own wife Lucilia, in order that she might inspire him with more deep and fervent affection. It has been in- geniously conjectured that the whole story was an invention of some enemy of the Epicureans, who conceived that such an end would be peculiarly appropriate for one who so boldly professed and so zealously advocated the principles of that pliilo- sophy. Not a hint is to be found anywhere which corroborates the assertion with regard to the edi- torial labours of Cicero.

When we consider that what has been set down above comprises everything that can be gleaned from authentic sources, we may feel somewhat sur- prised, on turning to the biographies of Lucretius prefixed to various editions and translations of his work, to find that they contain a detailed account 